


Deep-Sea Sunbeams

by Tridraconeus



Category: Original Work
Genre: Art, M/M, Mermaids & Mermen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 20:22:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19216852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus/pseuds/Tridraconeus
Summary: A merman prince gets caught in a riptide and meets a deep-sea merman.





	Deep-Sea Sunbeams

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Mermay](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/490510) by undergroundwubwubmaster. 



> I had SO MUCH fun writing this especially how to describe movement in an environment where it is not necessarily Required to point up. That was a definite first for me! Art by undergroundwubwubmaster, located [here](https://undergroundwubwubmaster.tumblr.com/post/184903650077/now-what-does-a-little-sun-ray-like-you-do-far) and in the... inspired-by link? The art that I referenced is at the bottom as well.

_Watch for the rip_ , she’d say, adjusting the crown on his tiny head. _Watch for the rip_. It had been an all-encompassing terror when he was that age, even scarier than the thought of ending up far from the kingdom. He could always swim back, or enlist help. He was cute, he was charming, and he was royalty. The thought of being swept up in an inexorable tide-- the helplessness of it-- made him cold and shivery on even the warmest days.

That was long ago, when he was a child. He still thought about riptides occasionally; the cold fear didn’t stay very long at all.

Fear had a purpose, though. Sunshine’s first mistake came with simple carelessness that fear could have prevented. Streams of bubbles and seaweed scraps tumbled past him on the current, but it was a sluggish one that gave him a boost and made carving a path through the water easier, enjoyable. He curled into a somersault just to watch the sun play on his scales, luminous through the cartilage of his fins. A mistake—foolish. The tide caught him before he could free himself from the rip, and before he could remember the other techniques he’d been taught to save himself from an unexpected current it was too strong to fight.

His muscles felt like jelly from struggling fruitlessly against the rip, and every time he thought he was going to break out and push himself into calmer water the current rebuffed him and he was tugged back again; twirled and twisted in the relentless tide. More quickly than he’d ever imagined, the sunlight thinned and weakened. He saw the seafloor, and then a trench opening up like a craggy scar. Bones of long-dead leviathans hung over the edge and fish teemed between the vast ribcages, not the bright and colorful fish he was used to but duller, drabber kinds. He’d long since ceased trying to fight the tide. It would be done with him when it was done with him.

The tide carried him down. There was sun, still, but it was faint. Just how far down would the tide take him?

“What’s this?” A flicker of bones, of coral beads, of gold, trailing hair and an even longer trailing tail made of pierced fin and bone, circled him. Moved with him, slicing into the dying rip current to come up behind him and catch Sunshine’s body with his own, shoulder to shoulder. Cheek to cheek. The slow spiral stopped as Sunshine finally got a good look at his… rescuer.

“Now what does a little sun-ray like you do far away from the surface?”

Gold shone around his neck and on his chest, catching the wavering rays of light. Sunshine didn’t feel up for answering at the moment-- he reached out for him instead, combing his fingers through the bangles on his choker; they weren’t heavy enough to fall back immediately, bouncing on the tide between Sunshine’s fingers. _My_ , but his hair was long. It would disappear into the pitch below if not for the bangles and bones braided intermittently into the strands. The merman himself seemed perfectly suited to the darkness. He was longer, tougher than Sunshine, and Sunshine figured he would find the merman intimidating if he hadn’t just called him a _sun-ray_.  The merman pulled him from the weak tail of the rip and let him hang tail-up for the time being, lazily pushing them away. Pulling them deeper. Sunshine could endure the depths of the ocean, and he was too turned-around to worry much about that anyways.

“A rip current,” he said finally. The other man tutted—amused at Sunshine’s predicament, but sympathetic. He reached up to rest his hand on Sunshine’s belly, steering them both around to catch a particularly strong sunbeam. Sunshine clasped his hand over—his skin was rough, and he could feel bone-plates studded on the back of the other merman’s hand.

“You’re not the first.”

“I must admit, I’m a little disoriented.”

“Why don’t you try putting your tail to the seafloor, then?” He smiled again, eyes narrowed and twinkling. “What do they teach you up there, sun-ray?”

Before he could stop himself, Sunshine was laughing. He gave an experimental flip of his tail and righted himself, fixing his crown and untangling hair from his earrings. “My name is Sun _shine_! _Prince_ Sunshine.”

“You’re a prince, huh?” His rescuer eyed him up and down, crossing his arms, flipping his tailfin to brush against Sunshine’s. “Me too. Prince Spotfin, at your… service. This is the part where I’d ask to whom I owe the pleasure, but you’ve introduced yourself already.”

Sunshine snorted. “Just pretend. We’ve got to do it properly.”

“Oh, I love being proper.” He flicked his tailfin to push away the proper amount of distance. He straightened up, tucking his hands behind his back, and nodded at Sunshine. “Give it to me good, sunbeam.”

Sunshine would have rolled his eyes. Clearly, Spotfin hated the intricacies of what being a prince meant. Sunshine figured he should have guessed that from the outset, since he was by himself without the normal pomp and retinue the station required.

“I am Prince Sunshine. From up there.” He gestured in the vague direction of _up_. Spotfin nodded, quite seriously.

“I am Prince Spotfin, from down here.” He spread his arms out to indicate the vast stretch of the trench. The bangles and bracelets around his wrists brushed together with the movement, settling softly back to his skin. “And however quickly a rip current takes you somewhere, it’ll take you three times as long to swim back.”

Sunshine vaguely remembered being told something like that, but it was drowned out by the more general advice of avoiding the rips in the first place.

“So I’ve got a swim ahead of me.” He sighed, swishing his fins to set himself horizontal to the surface far above. Spotfin hummed and circled around, swimming over and under him.

“I’ll go with you. I’ve always wanted to sunbathe.”

“You’ve never been up to the surface?” Sunshine crossed his arms, head twisting idly to follow Spotfin’s sinuous path.

“You’ve never been down to the trenches?” Spotfin drifted above him, gesturing widely. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Sunshine replied honestly. “I haven’t been down here for long.”

“I can show you around before we go back up?”

Sunshine was interested, despite himself. He swam next to Spotfin, angling himself up. Spotfin slowed to let him pass, then followed close behind. “Isn’t it dangerous down here?”

Spotfin laughed. “Nothing messes with me. You’ll be fine.”

Sunshine could have argued that Spotfin hadn’t answered him. There was no point to it, though.

“I think I should go back. There’ll be people looking for me.”

Spotfin hummed. He swam up until they were even, then past Sunshine. “If that’s what you want to do. Is it true you can find your way anywhere just by using the sky?”

“Yes, the stars.”

“Huh.” Spotfin tilted his head up. They were still too far below for the sun to be anything but a faint blotch in a wide swathe of blue. If it were night, there was no way for the stars to pierce this far below the surface. Sunshine pulled next to him, glancing over.

“Yeah.”

Spotfin looked at him, then back to the surface far above. “Huh.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos welcomed! Tell me what you liked, what you didn't, what caught your eye-- anything!


End file.
